It's a manifesto I mutter every night, when everything seems too desolated to continue in.

Do I even have half an idea what it means? No, I correct myself, I know everything about it. I was the one who started saying it.

The spaces in between the windowpanes make shadows that dance around me. Something to dream about, if I could.

Because you know what I want to be? I want to be the one that you can rely on. The one that saves your life in a small way every night, and in a big way. It's not a thing about ego, it's just a thing about…want. It's not something you can really explain…

Yeah. Every night nowadays, I say it. I want to be the lamppost you can lean on, no matter how small I might be. Call me a wannabe, but it's something I do.

Sometimes I cycle through my friends: Blaze. That's about as far as my friends go in this mutilated world. This is how the future is—make friends or make like an ant and die. And I hate all of it; there's no room for, well, what you'd call an idealist.

Can't anyone see what they could be if they just used their mind for something great? It's thoughts like this that make me wrap my arms around myself at night, trying to stop the pain that happens from pure, unadulterated depression.

Thoughts like these: We're pretty useless, aren't we, the general populus. Hah, the ironic thing is that it's Latin for 'people', even though there are just two of us.

I make a lot of patter of this, and in actuality, the fact is, I rely on Blaze a lot. Maybe more than I should. She says I sell myself short and overtax myself. I feel like a burden, sometimes, that's true. And sometimes I feel like a bad drawing: ready to be crumpled up into a ball and hurled into a wastebasket. Blaze also says I'm naïve. I don't know what to make of that, because sometimes she says it like it's a good thing and sometimes it's a bad thing to her.

She's really what keeps me going, I guess. Blaze claims it's a mutual relationship, but really, I feel like the top of most buildings Iblis destroys. Without my foundation, I fall. Gravity just pulls me down to where I deserve to be.

I know I say I feel like a lot of things, and if I ever said them out loud, I'd probably choke up with the depression. Do I want to admit it? No, I don't. Who does?

But that's my good side and my bad side, and you have to take what you get. Good with the bad, beggars can't be choosers. And every little part of it makes me.

I guess everyone has an inherent like of saying 'me'. Me first, give me, me. All phrases we learn very quickly in life. I hear that I'm shy, and socially inept even. Blaze is frank, what can I say? In light of that, I can't say I'm a huge fan of talking about myself—no, when it gets down to it, that's a total lie. I don't necessarily love it, but I don't hate it. It's there, in everyone.

And that brings me back. I want to be there for this 'everyone'. No matter where I am, I want them to know they can rely on me. It puts a lot of stress out there onto me, but every night, you know what I do?

Sometimes I lay awake and sleep at the same time, but when I don't, I lay awake and dream.